When it comes to optimizing mid-market enterprise networks, one size does not fit all

by Yulia Duryea

August 25, 2017

Wouldn’t it be nice if everything was Plug and Play? We all crave that kind of simplicity in our lives, but sometimes simplicity leads to oversimplification that becomes counterproductive. In the network space, we see this a lot with mid-market companies who would welcome the types of solutions geared for smaller organization but which just can’t seem to scale to their needs. At the same time, they often lack the resources of many larger enterprises who can more easily apply the time and money required to bring complex projects to fruition.

A number of companies in the SD-WAN space seem to understand this mindset and there are no shortage of promises about how simple it can be to make the move. This can be quite a carrot to those companies that have reached the limits imposed on innovation and growth by their existing pre-Internet traditional network designs.

The problem is, while customers know they want SD-WAN, they are also pain and risk averse. So they are wary of false “one size fits all” promises some solutions imply. That’s actually smart when it comes to SD-WAN, where every implementation is going to be unique, since every company is unique, with different applications, legacy technology, goals and objectives, etc.

Yulia Duryea

Yulia Duryea is Director of Product Management at Windstream where she is the product lead over the Enterprise SD-WAN portfolio. Prior to joining Windstream, Yulia held a variety of product roles at Level 3 Communications, where she managed the product lifecycle of a number of services, including managed security services, managed router, managed UCC, Ethernet and IP-VPN. Yulia holds an MBA from Oregon State University, and a BS from Université Lyon 3, in Lyon France.